Chapter IX: Crossovers on Land and at Sea

Debussy's friend, Pierre Louÿs, wrote the Chansons de Bilitis as a hoax, claiming the erotic poems were written by an ancient Greek maiden and that he had discovered them and simply provided a translation. He enjoyed this deception, and clearly Debussy enjoyed both the pretense and the texts as well: he used them as the basis for 3 songs as well as works for 4 hand piano, solo piano, and a chamber ensemble. Both poems below feature crossovers: Pan was half goat, and the water nymphs were half fish. Crossovers are, of course, yet another outlet for the exoticism and mania for masks which ran rampant in the Belle Époque.

La Flûte de Pan (The pan‑pipes)By Pierre Louÿs (1870-1925)

For the festival of Hyacinthushe gave me a syrinx, a set of pipes madefrom well-cut reeds joinedwith the white waxthat is sweet to my lips like honey.

He is teaching me to play, as I sit on his knees;but I tremble a little.He plays it after me, so softlythat I can scarcely hear it.

We are so close that we havenothing to say to one another;but our songs want to converse,and our mouths are joinedas they take turns on the pipes.

It is late:here comes the chant of the green frogs,which begins at dusk.My mother will never believeI spent so longsearching for my lost waistband.

UNDINEBY Friedrich DE LA MOTTE FOUQUE (1777-1843)

Images

Arthur Rackham (1867-1939), the famous English children's book author, was beloved by Debussy and provided the title illustration for "Les fées sont d'exquises danseuses" from Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, as well as the illustrations for Midsummer Night's Dream, which inspired Debussy's La Danse de Puck. Here we have the inspiration for Debussy's Ondine, the water sprite who was half fish, half human. She appears below, all charm and innocence, her later incarnation as femme fatale as yet unknown.

Arthur Rackham (1867-1939), Ondine (1909)

Ondine wasn’t only of interest to children’s book illustrators. Her appeal was sophisticated and widespread, and Paul Gauguin was one of many who portrayed her illusive charms, picturing her in multiple works.

Paul Gauguin (1848-1903), In the Waves (Ondine) (1889)

It wasn't only children's books that featured betwixt and betweens, and many were far more threatening than Ondine. Klimt's mermaids carry with them a sinister allure that was undoubtedly precisely their fascination. Klimt, a forerunner of the expressionist painters in Austria, was, interestingly enough, Debussy's exact contemporary.

Gustave Klimt (1862-1918), The Mermaid (1899)

Klimt, Mermaids or Silver-Fish (1899)

Debussy knew and admired Redon; he would have been both fascinated and repelled by these fantastical creatures, half-human, half beast.

This curvaceous maiden appeared in the Courrier Français on the 30th of March, 1902, her legs bound together like the tail of a fish. She appears able to cross species in a manner far less terrifying than Klimt's and Redon's women; but she's clearly a force to contend with, and Debussy probably took note.

Musical examples

Ondine is a complex character-- a capricious child, a femme fatale, a tragic figure deprived of a soul, and all the while not fully human. Ravel painted her in greater depth and detail, while Debussy gives us a fleeting glimpse as she rapidly swims by. She's mischievous and seductive in Debussy's portrait, and the little germ of an idea that he presents in different registers and tempos encapsulates her ability to morph from one mood to another, from one personality to another, and finally from one species to the next.

The wicked maiden who causes the fall of Ys in the ancient Breton tale entitled "The Legend of the City of Ys," is transformed into a mermaid in the sequel to that story. One imagines her continually swimming through churning waters as the sunken cathedral of her doomed city rises periodically to remind the fallen inhabitants of their sins.

These songs, with texts by Debussy's good friend, Pierre Louys, are inhabited by the ancient traces of satyrs and the flute of the god, Pan. Both partake of crossover creatures, here half-human, half-goat. They create the mythical and erotic world which Bilitis, Louys' imagined Greek maiden, inhabited--yet another universe infused with magic to which Debussy was drawn.